Do You See What I See?
by spoowriterfic
Summary: Set after "Don't Hate the Player," Tommy wonders why no one else can see something that seems very obvious to him.


**Do You See What I See?**, Part 1 of 1

**Pairing**: None officially, but Jane and Maura will get there eventually

**Spoilers**: This is a short tag for "Don't Hate the Player"

**Disclaimer**: The only thing that's mine is the plot, such as it is.

**Note**: This is another story I didn't mean to write – I've been struggling with a different one that took a turn to the dark side, so to speak, and have been trying to finish that up – but I just couldn't let go of the idea that Angela didn't notice the dress Jane was wearing (I know – she was upset about the TV, but still...). Then Tommy decided to go and be all observant, and I got this out of it.

* * *

><p>By the time dessert rolled around, Jane was beginning to think she might just be home free. Tommy was keeping his mouth shut, and her mother hadn't mentioned clothes at all.<p>

She'd been far too stressed at the time to register the fact that both her mother _and_ her brother had seen her wearing Maura's dress, but she'd spent every moment between then and Sunday dinner convinced she was about to be ambushed.

Ambushed by what, she wasn't sure. Though the dress looked great on Maura, she knew she hadn't really done it justice, and she was half-convinced she'd face being berated for her horrible fashion sense once again.

Or, worse, that they would think she looked _good_ like that and should wear clothes like that more often. She hadn't forgotten the way her mother had gushed over the dress she'd worn to brunch a few weeks ago.

And that wasn't even taking into account that was the way her mother – who'd tricked Maura into admitting she'd bought Jane the outfit – had hounded her relentlessly over the following weeks, pestering her to let Maura take her shopping.

Lulled into a false sense of security, she was absentmindedly scooping up the last of the whipped cream when her mother yelped, loudly enough that it startled her into dropping her spoon, "Jane!"

"What?"

"A dress! A pink dress! You were wearing a dress!"

Jane groaned quietly – she'd been so close – then plastered a neutral look onto her face and asked innocently, "What?"

"The other night. When the TV went missing. You were wearing a _pink dress_!"

She'd opened her mouth – with, admittedly, no idea what she was about to say – when Tommy added, "Yeah, you had one on at the vet too. I thought you hated pink."

"I do."

Angela looked from Jane to Tommy and back again, then crossed her arms, raised an eyebrow, and just stared at them, the way she had when they were squabbling teenagers.

Jane relented first. "Oh. That. Well, you know, the guy who ended up being the killer? He said he had some info for me and invited me to some fancy French place – "

"Le Beau Truc."

Korsak chuckled around a mouthful of ice cream at Maura's interruption, and she shot him a mild glare. "Whatever. He wanted me to interview him at this uppity – "

"It's not 'uppity'!" Maura protested, then continued over Jane's loud sigh, "It's a five star restaurant whose take on modern French cuisine is world renowned."

"He wanted me to _interview him_," Jane grumbled, "at a rich people's restaurant, and Maura said I couldn't wear my work clothes."

"Actually, I said – "

"Would you two knock it off!" Angela snapped. "I swear, the way you two bicker, it's like – "

Unnoticed by the others, Tommy frowned and glanced at his mother, then across the table at his sister.

Over her mother's interruption, Jane continued, "You _said_ I was outta my mind." When Frankie hid a laugh behind his hand, she shifted her glare to him, then to Maura. "I still don't see what was so wrong with it."

She spent a few moments ignoring everybody, studiously stirring a squirt of Hershey's syrup into her vanilla ice cream, until the whole thing resembled nothing so much as chocolate soft-serve.

When she sensed her mother's raised-eyebrow stare, she sighed. "We switched clothes, okay?"

Korsak began coughing violently.

"Watch it, Detective," Frankie said. "That's my sister you're thinkin' about."

"Or Doctor Isles," Tommy added helpfully, grinning when his sister transferred her glare – which seemed to have taken up permanent residence on her face – to him.

"Hey!" she barked to her brothers. "Quit it!" She turned to Korsak. "You're not thinking about _either one of us_, are you?"

Wide eyed, Korsak shook his head emphatically, still coughing.

"Look, it wasn't a big deal, okay? And, besides, the guy was a killer."

"You didn't wear your work boots, did you?"

Jane sighed, rubbing her temples. "No, Ma. Maura wouldn't let me."

"Actually, I said – "

"Yeah, fine, you said my shoes were…what…fashion homicide?"

Frankie snickered.

"See?" Angela crowed. "I've been telling you that for years, Janie? Why don't you listen to me?"

"So…" drawled Frankie. "What shoes _did _you wear, Janie?"

"Don't call me Janie."

"What shoes _did_ you wear, Detective Rizzoli?" he amended amiably.

"Maura gave me hers. All right? Can we…drop…this…now?" She frowned and trailed to a halt as she watched Tommy bend over at the waist and peer under the table. "The hell are you doing?"

Tommy sat back up with a smirk. "You don't wear the same size."

"And you're, what, an expert on girls' shoes?"

"Well, he is right, Jane. We don't wear the same size." Maura turned to Angela and explained, "I…adjusted them for her."

Angela glanced across the table at Korsak, who shrugged. "I didn't see her."

The frown on Jane's face faded into quiet pride. "Maura sacrificed a pair of shoes for justice."

Tommy raised an eyebrow but went back to his food with no verbal comment on the subject.

"She sliced off the ends to make room for my toes."

"Huh," muttered Tommy, more at the tone of Jane's voice than the words.

No one heard him, though, over Angela's gasp of horror. "You didn't!"

"I did," Maura said calmly, as though mutilating thousand-dollar shoes were an everyday occurrence. "I converted them into peep toes for her. They looked nice."

"Well, they _felt_ awful," Jane muttered, but there was no real rancor in her voice. "It _was_ a cool thing to do," she added. "And she," she said, gesturing towards Maura, "did have to suffer through wearing my clothes for a few hours."

Korsak began to cough again.

"It wasn't all bad, though of course synthetic fabrics aren't my…favorite. After all, I did get approached by two – "

"Maura!"

"What?"

* * *

><p>Tommy waited until his mother had left to walk Korsak to his car before he sat back down at the table next to Frankie. "Okay, what the hell is the deal with Janie?"<p>

Frankie paused in the act of taking a sip of beer – which Maura had matter-of-factly produced from her floor-to-ceiling wine chiller – and frowned at his brother. "What?"

Tommy pointed back towards the kitchen, where Jane and Maura were currently squabbling good-naturedly over the proper way to wash the dishes. "_That_," he said, clearly expecting that nothing more needed to be said.

"What?"

Tommy's jaw dropped. "Seriously? You don't see it?" He pointed behind them again and waited while Frankie watched for a few moments.

"I see Jane," he finally allowed.

"And Doctor Isles," Tommy prodded, eyebrows raised.

"Maura, yeah." At the skeptical look on his brother's face, Frankie shrugged. "She saved my life. She tells me to call her Maura, I'm gonna call her Maura."

"Yeah, but – I mean, I've been here like three days, and Jane's over here more than she's at her apartment. Jo Friday has a doggie bed in the living room. There's a tube of Jane's toothpaste in the bathroom – you know there's no way Doctor Isles uses plain old Crest."

Frankie shrugged nonchalantly. "Yeah? They're best friends. And Maura watched Jo while Jane was…while things were bad."

Tommy shook his head. "Seriously?"

"What?"

"Forget it."

By the sink, Jane said quietly, "Tommy's staring at you."

Maura scrubbed another plate before she discretely glanced towards the table. "I think he's staring at you."

Jane froze. "That's…creepy."

Maura laughed. "Jane! That's not what I meant!"

For a moment, Jane did nothing. Then her eyes narrowed and her hand shot towards the sink, sloshing some soapsuds onto Maura's arm. With wide-eyed affected innocence, she drawled, "Oops. That's not what I meant to do."

Maura's jaw dropped in mostly mock horror; her eyes sparkled with merriment. "I'll get you for that."

"You can try," Jane taunted with a grin.

Tommy, watching from the table, stared at Frankie accusingly. "Seriously? You don't see that?"

"See _what_?"

"_That_!" Tommy said, pointing again at his sister and Maura, who were now completely engaged in a soapsuds fight.

"What? I told you…they're best friends."

Tommy sighed mournfully. "You keep using those words. I don't think they mean what you think they mean."

"Really? You're quoting _Princess Bride_ at me?"

"Are you even watching this?" Tommy asked his brother, though his eyes were glued to his sister, who had just put a dollop of soapsuds on Maura's nose with a gleeful chuckle. He was hard-pressed to remember the last time he'd seen her look so carefree.

"They're washing the dishes."

Tommy threw his hands up and Maura spluttered, wiped her nose, and then put a handful of soapsuds into Jane's hair. "I give up."

"What?"

"I give up. I'm gonna go walk the dog." Tommy whistled. "C'mon, Jo." He knelt to put Jo's leash on and muttered to the dog, "_You_ see it, right?"

"See what?" Angela said cheerfully as she came back inside.

Wearily, Tommy shook his head in defeat. "Nothing." He glanced back once more towards the kitchen, smiling in reflex when he saw the relaxed, full smile on his sister's face – the one that erased years of stress and showed both dimples – as she reacted to something Maura had said. "Nothing."

Jo Friday barked, and Tommy smiled wistfully. "At least you're on my side."

He closed the door to the sound of his sister's light-hearted laughter.


End file.
